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changbin was kind of the loner type, and he always used to say that if he hadn’t found me, he wouldn’t have had anyone to hang out with in college. i doubt that, though. i knew that several of my friends found him attractive. they weren’t shy about expressing their feelings about him in front of me.
changbin and i? no, it’s not like that. i don’t think it could ever be that way, especially after i spent all that time convincing my mother that we weren’t together after I brought him home for thanksgiving in sophomore year of college.
(“he’s my friend” i had said, once changbin had left the room. “you can be both friends and lovers,” my mother shot back. i don’t bring up changbin around her anymore.)
my dorm mate that same year (rebecca weathers) and i had a minor falling out, that, well, turned into a larger falling out, so I moved into changbin’s dorm. he already had a dorm mate (hyunjin hwang) who was nice and i thought was cute but never said anything. (i regret it now)
changbin studied at odd hours. he was always asleep when i got home from my last class, but later, around 2 in the morning, i could hear him get out of bed and pore over his assignments. i think he got good grades.
every pair of friends needs a hang out, and ours was the coffee spot just off campus. it had a certain vibe that appealed to us both. a vibe that appealed to most of the school population who frequented the spot. our hangout doesn’t have any further bearing in this story, i’m afraid. we’ve moved onto bigger and better coffee spots in far larger cities across the globe, changbin and i.
my love life was…. complicated. it’s college after all, and the idea of commitment does tend to get lost on people. changbin had a girlfriend for a while (fiona madden) but they split and he dodged all mention of her. he thought rebecca was pretty but not after i told him what had happened between me and her.
i guess after we both had found some success in our careers we forgot about each other. for a few years after college we talked occasionally but we fell out of touch with the passing of time. his thing was music production. I took the business route.
we met later in life: i was maybe 30 and found an old diary. i was cleaning out a room i think. i open to a page about changbin and decided to give him a call. (he picked up after the 4th ring)
changbin: hello?
me: …
changbin: yes? Hello?
me: yeah, hi
changbin: oh hey, I remember you !
(A/N: my brother said this part was stupid bc he wouldn’t remember you from just your voice after almost a decade, but let’s just ignore that, shall we?)
how are things?
me: fine, you know, good
changbin: that’s good….
me: …thanks…..
(i hung up. i don’t know why.)
well, what do you know! the next year, changbin was in my town (technically, city, and more specifically, new york city) it was for only one night on a business trip. (i know this because he called again to tell me, i don’t remember the exact conversation we had)
i pulled down a murphy bed in my studio apartment where i had offered to let him stay the night. it was pretty small, so we would be in close quarters. (it reminded me of the old dorm we shared, it was pretty small)
he arrived to my apartment. i also offered to drive him from the airport, but he said he’d get a cab. the minute he arrived, he put his bags away. he said he liked the bed and thanked me. i said it wasn’t much and he was welcome to stay longer if he’d like. he couldn’t though he wished he could; he had to travel somewhere else the next day after his appointment in new york.
dinner: pizza, a local restaurant, we sat outside and watched the birds, we caught up some, he told me that hyunjin had found a job as an attorney, he insisted that he should pay and he ended up doing so after a small argument, we talked some more on the way back to the apartment—
“and just to let you know, i love you. i haven’t been able to stop thinking about you all these years. let’s start a future together.”
i don’t remember who said it.
…
…
…
“but i have to leave tomorrow. it was nice staying here. thank you for everything.”
later that night, we had sex. afterwards, we turned on our sides and watched the stars through the window. It was his idea. (they were pretty but I couldn’t stop thinking about him.)
the next morning: i woke up, surrounded by my white sheets. the light coming through the window was softer than normal and shone across the room. he was in the doorway.
“i love you, but i have to go.”
i nodded. A tear.
“i’ll miss you.”
changbin pushed the murphy bed (that he didn’t use the previous night) back into its regular position, tucked into the wall. he left and left me to cry.